Thomas Fletcher
Thomas James Fletcher IV (January 23, 1920 - November 18, 2014) was an American career officer in the United States Army who served as an infantry officer in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Fletcher, throughout his thirty-nine year military career, earned four Distinguished Service Crosses as well as numerous other decorations for valor and courage under fire and retired at the rank of Colonel. Early life and family Fletcher was born on January 23, 1920, in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He was of predominantly English descent, as well as some Irish and Dutch. Many of his relatives were of prominant and wealthy New England Anglo-Saxon stock, including an ancestor who came to America via the Mayflower in 1620. His father, Thomas James Fletcher III (1888-1955), held a regional management position in the McKay Shoe company, and as a result, the family lived a very comfortable life in Haverhill's wealthy Highland district. Elise Janet Fletcher (neé Thompson) (1891-1976), his mother, was a volunteer with the American Red Cross until 1919, when she met and married her husband. Fletcher's paternal grandfather, Thomas James Fletcher II (1846-1928), was a decorated Civil War veteran whose stories inspired him at a young age. After completing elemetary school, Fletcher was enrolled at Choate Rosemary Hall, which he graduated in 1938. The same year, he sent an application to Harvard College. Upon acceptance, Fletcher began studying towards a degree in international relations. A very outspoken advocate of American involvement in World War II, Fletcher distributed flyers and engaged in debates with fellow students. When not studying, Fletcher worked for two years at a local bakery, first as an assistant, then managing the shop himself when its elderly owner became too sick to work. It was also at Harvard that Fletcher met his future wife, Mary Frances Corcoran. Upon the imposition of the peacetime draft in September 1940 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fletcher put his education on hold and enlisted in the United States Army. Military career World War II Fletcher enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army on September 17, 1940. His superiors, recognizing his education and skills, assigned him to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he served as a typist for nearly a year, working several other jobs around the installation. Upon the establishment of the Officer Candidate School, Fletcher was recommended and thus joined the first-ever OCS class in July 1941, training to be an infantry officer and graduating in September of that year. Now officially a Second Lieutenant, Fletcher was assigned to command a rifle platoon in Company A, 16th Infantry Regiment, a member of the much-vaunted 1st Infantry Division "Big Red One". Once he had settled into his new unit, Fletcher learned that, on December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor and brought the United States officially into the world war against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The 1st Infantry Division immediately began preparing for combat deployment, and in 1942 sailed to England. In September, the division departed Scotland for its first mission of the war. Lieutenant Fletcher landed with his unit on the Algerian coast in Operation Torch, scattering the defending Vichy French forces and capturing the major city of Oran two days later. After a lengthy stay in Oran, Fletcher and his men began to move east into Tunisia, where they would help the British Commonwealth forces engaged in fighting the German and Italian Afrika Korps there. Fletcher's unit pushed into Tunisia via the Ousseltia Valley in January 1943 and faced the axis troops at the Battle of Kasserine Pass in February of that year. Although the battle was a disaster for most of the allied forces, Fletcher's battalion was able to hold off a major German attack. In March, Lieutenant Fletcher participated in the taking of the Italian-held town of Gafsa, after which the Germans responded with a massive attack in the Battle of El Guettar. Blunting the enemy's advance and leading a counterattack, Fletcher again greatly distinguished himself. After the 1st Infantry Division was repositioned to the north of the line in Tunisia, the allied troops began the final offensive to destroy the Afrika Korps and drive the axis out of North Africa. Advancing towards Mateur, Lieutenant Fletcher's men encountered stiff resistance near a point called Hill 523. Several attacks and counterattacks followed, in which the Americans took the hill several times but were forced off every time. Nevertheless, the offensive was a success and Lieutenant Fletcher showed considerable skill and bravery, earning him his first Distinguished Service Cross and a promotion to First Lieutenant. The next target for the allies was the Italian island of Sicily, which Fletcher's men were to assault in Operation Husky in July 1943. The 1st Infantry Division landed at Gela, swiftly defeating the local Italian troops. Several German armored counterattacks in the Battle of Gela nearly drove the Americans back into the sea, but Fletcher's unit stopped them and continued to advance. Fighting through German and Italian resistance, Lieutenant Fletcher led his men to capture Niscemi and Sperlingua. Encountering entrenched German defenders, the division fought hard to dislodge them in the Battle of Troina. With the capture of Messina and Palermo, Lieutenant Fletcher saw the conclusion of a second successful campaign against the axis. Returning to England in November 1943, Fletcher and his unit immediately began preparing for Operation Overlord, the cross-channel invasion of Normandy aimed at Berlin. On the morning of June 6, 1944, Lieutenant Fletcher's unit attacked in concert with over 150,000 other allied troops as they landed on a strip of Normandy coast known as Omaha Beach. Casualties were extremely high, including the company commander, but Fletcher led his men with great skill and resolve, seizing most of their D-Day objectives and pushing the Germans back inland. Now promoted to Captain, Fletcher led his company through Operation Cobra in July, breaking through the German defenses in the hedgerow and clearing the way toward Paris. In August, Fletcher's men participated in the elimination of the Mons pocket and began their drive out of France and into Germany. The German border, protected by the formidable Siegfried Line, was the next target. The 1st Infantry Division advanced into Germany against stiff resistance, repelling a major German counteroffensive. Captain Fletcher soon after participated in the Battle of Aachen in October 1944, the first German city to be invaded by the allies. Once the city had been secured, Fletcher's unit continued to drive east in the slow and costly Battle of Hürtgen Forest, fighting through the entrenched German defenders for three hard months. In December, the Nazi high command launched their winter offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge, prompting the 1st Infantry Division to be sent to the Ardennes to halt the German attack. In the Battle of Elsenborn Ridge, Captain Fletcher's company, though greatly outnumbered, held their position in Belgium against multiple fierce attacks by the Germans before counterattacking in January 1945 and driving the Germans out of the Ardennes for good. Invading Germany a second time, Fletcher's unit captured the city of Bonn in March and crossed the Rhine via the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen. Pushing deep into the heartland, the 1st Infantry Division cleared the Harz Mountains and had just crossed the border into Czechoslovakia when, on May 8th, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally to the allies. Post-war and the occupation of Germany Fletcher's unit, headquartered in central Germany, took on occupation duties immediately, paroling thousands of German prisoners seeking shelter from the Soviet Red Army. Fletcher considered requesting a transfer to the Pacific Theatre in order to finish the fight against the Japanese, but stayed in Europe for a year before returning home. In 1948, with the start of the Berlin Blockade and the onset of the Cold War, Captain Fletcher was sent to Berlin, helping to unload airlifted supplies opposite the now-adversarial Soviet troops. Korean War After North Korea had invaded South Korea, Fletcher requested a transfer to a combat unit. He found one in the 7th Infantry Division, where he was to command Company C of the 32nd Infantry Regiment based in Mount Fuji, Japan. Deploying to Korea in September 1950, Fletcher's unit fought through North Korean defenders in the Battle of Inchon, a naval invasion aimed at liberating Seoul. Driving northwards against the Communist forces, the 7th Infantry Division made another landing and pushed all the way to the city of Hyesanjin-on-the-Yalu on the Manchurian border. With this victory, it seemed that the United Nations had won the war. In December, however, hundreds of thousands of Communist Chinese troops crossed the border and attacked the UN forces. Captain Fletcher's command was hit by great numbers of the enemy in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, but the men managed to hold off the attacks despite suffering heavy losses. In concert with marines and other army forces, Fletcher's men (no longer a cohesive unit) broke out of the encirclement and escaped via the port at Hungnam. Now commanding Company A of the 17th Infantry Regiment, Fletcher took part in the new UN counteroffensive of 1951, driving the Chinese away from Seoul and above the 38th Parallel. In May, his unit recaptured the vital Hwachon Reservior and its surrounding territories. In October, Captain Fletcher and the rest of the 7th Infantry Division participated in a major attack at the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge, driving out the Communist Chinese and North Koreans. 1952 saw them fight an extensive campaign in the Battle of Old Baldy, holding off the enemy forces and holding Line Missouri throughout September. The next month, the division launched Operation Showdown, aimed at taking a major Chinese strongpoint. The Battle of Triangle Hill, as it came to be known, was a prolongued and costly campaign which failed to take its objective. Nonetheless, Captain Fletcher and his men again greatly distinguished themselves in action against the enemy. With the start of 1953, the front was still in stalemate, with neither side launching serious offensive actions. However, when the Chinese overran a division outpost in April, Captain Fletcher was sent in to help retake it. In the Battle of Pork Chop Hill, his unit fought tenaciously to hold their ground against superior numbers of Chinese troops in a series of attacks and counterattacks which lasted into July, ending in an eventual American retreat. Around the same time, the peace talks at Panmunjom began a ceasefire, ending the war on July 27, 1953. Return to Germany and the Cold War Leaving Korea in 1954, Thomas Fletcher was promoted to the rank of Major. In 1958, he returned to Germany and was stationed in West Berlin, assigned to USAREUR (United States Army Europe) headquarters. The peace was broken on August 12, 1961, when Soviet forces sealed off the western sectors of the city and began construction on the Berlin Wall. In the city at the time, Fletcher took part in the standoff against the Soviet troops until an agreement was made and the tension lowered. While in Germany, Major Fletcher took note of the escalation of American involvement in the war in Vietnam and requested appointment as an advisor to ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) troops. In this he was denied, but was appointed in July 1965 to the headquarters of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) during its reorganization. Vietnam War In July 1965, Major Fletcher was deployed with his unit to An Khe in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. In October, the division helped repel the PAVN (People's Army of Vietnam) assault in the Siege of Plei Me before taking the offensive by launching numerous search-and-destroy missions against the North Vietnamese forces. In November, Fletcher joined the airlift operation which began the Battle of Ia Drang, in which American forces held off several attacks by the numerically superior Communist troops over the course of three days. In 1966, the 1st Cavalry Division stepped up its efforts against the PAVN and VC (Viet Cong) by launching larger search-and-destroy missions, beginning with Operation Masher in January. Fletcher took part in the subsequent Battle of Bong Son, driving the North Vietnamese back before sweeping the An Lao and Kim Son Valleys. Completing his one-year tour of Vietnam, Major Fletcher returned to the United States. In late 1967, his request for an appointment as an advisor was finally accepted. He was assigned to the staff of the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division. On January 31, 1968, the PAVN and VC launched the massive Tet Offensive against South Vietnam. Fletcher helped the local ARVN garrison repulse a major attack by the PAVN in the Battle of Quang Tri, and continued afterwards to assist the South Vietnamese troops in the counteroffensive operations after Tet. In August 1968, Major Fletcher left South Vietnam. On January 27, 1973, the Paris Peace Accords removed the United States from the war. On April 30, 1975, the war ended with a definitive Communist victory. REFORGER and conclusion of military service In 1973, Fletcher was promoted to Colonel and was assigned to the staff of USAREUR (US Army Europe) for the remainder of his career. During this time, he participated in the REFORGER (return of forces to Germany) exercises, seeing five seperate deployments to West Germany alongside a number of divisions. In the event of a war with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, these troops would be on the front line. Reforger 79, a deployment in January 1979, was to be Colonel Fletcher's last action serving with the U.S. Army. After thirty-nine years of service, four distinguished service crosses, three wars, two occupations, and credit for several dozen campaigns, Colonel Thomas James Fletcher retired from the United States Army on February 24, 1979. Personal Life In 1946, Thomas Fletcher married Mary Frances Corcoran, with whom he had been in a relationship for eight years prior. The two had three children: Thomas James Fletcher V in 1948, Olivia May Fletcher in 1955, and Jonathan Thomas Fletcher in 1961. In 1982, Fletcher was elected to the Haverhill city council, where he served until 1986. He was a member of both the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, participating in fundraising activities for the organizations throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In November 1990, Fletcher addressed an audience from the 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) at Fort Riley, Kansas, a day before its deployment to Saudi Arabia as a part of Operation Desert Shield. He gave a speech extolling the division's distinguished history and wishing the soldiers good luck on their mission. Later, after the 1st Division helped in destroying several Iraqi Divisions at the Battle of Norfolk in February 1991, he wrote a letter of congradulation to the divisional commander. In November 2014, Fletcher collapsed from sunstroke during a Veterans' Day parade in Boston. He was then transported to a hospital where he died seven days later. Views For most of his early life, Thomas Fletcher was a member of the Democratic Party and a strong supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies. He remained a member of the party until 1983, when he switched alliegances to the Republican Party. Three years earlier, he had voted for Ronald Reagan while still a Democrat. From the beginning of the Cold War until its end in 1991, Fletcher took a strong stance against Communism and advocated containment policy to fight it. He was known as a hawk and was a supporter of prosecuting the war in Vietnam, although in his later life he admitted that this was "probably not a good idea". In the 1980s, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the idea of religious freedom fighters defending their homes from an atheistic Communist war machine resonated with Fletcher, and he encouraged the United States government to support the Afghan Mujahideen. In 1977, when the Supreme Court upheld the right of a Neo-Nazi group to hold a march in Skokie, Illinois, Fletcher called the decision a "serious miscarriage of justice and a breach of American values." Awards and decorations First Distinguished Service Cross citation Rank: Second Lieutenant, United States Army. Organization: 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry, 1st Division. Place and Date: Near Mateur, Tunisia, April 18, 1943. Entered Service at: Cambridge, Mass. Birth: Haverhill, Mass. Equipment Throughout World War II and the Korean War, Fletcher used as his primary weapon the standard-issue M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle. Though not usually issued to officers, he preferred it due to its sturdiness and stopping power. He used the rifle's 10-inch M1 bayonet, as well as the M7 rifle grenade adaptor a number of times in his career. He also used during his time his own M1911 Colt .45 pistol, returning home from Germany with the very same sidearm that he had landed at Arzew with over thirty-six years previous. In North Africa, Europe, and Korea, he used the standard Mk II fragmentation grenade as well as M18 colored smoke grenades of various hues for smokescreen and signalling purposes. In 1959 Fletcher switched to the newer M14 rifle, which he used on exercises in Europe during the Cold War. In November 1965, he airdropped into the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam with the new M16 assault rifle, which he appreciated for its rate of fire but decried for its imbalance and tendency to jam in the field. He used the rifle's 6.75 inch M7 bayonet, an was able to test its new M203 underslung grenade launcher in a limited capacity. He also carried the newer M26 fragmentation grenade during this period. Both his original M1 rifle and M1911 pistol remained in his office until his death, whereupon they were given to his children and placed in their care. Category:Soldiers in World War II Category:Soldiers in the Korean War Category:Soldiers in the Vietnam War Category:American soldiers